The Anarchist Banker

by Fernando Pessoa

  The decade of 1910-1920 was a prolific one for Pessoa. He wrote a great deal of poetry, usually under the byline of his heteronyms, much of which appeared in literary journals or chapbooks published at his own expense. He also wrote voluminous prose writings but virtually all of these were buried in the famous baú (antique round-topped trunk), which only came to light after his death. This was a tumultuous period in the country capped by the assassination of Sidónio Pais, the military dictator of Portugal (whom Pessoa had supported), and the entry of Portugal into the World War.

  Pessoa wrote extensively on the political issues of the times, as well as his ideas for the future of Portugal and the special nature of the Portuguese people. He predicted the coming of a ‘super-Camões’ who would give witness to the rebirth of the greatness of Portugal—as had been the case during the period of the transoceanic discoveries. There is reason to think that he believed he himself would be this person.

  In the 1920s, Pessoa’s star in Portuguese circles slowly waned even though he continued to write and publish in various journals. Young avant-garde writers seemed no longer to relate to him. He did publish The Anarchist Banker as described above but it did not seem to receive much attention. More and more, he spent time writing the brief passages that ultimately were to become The Book of Discontent. He planned to publish them under this title but was never able to do so. A very detailed account of the history of this unusual book is given in Richard Zenith’s English translation. His heteronym Álvaro de Campos also continued to publish in various journals but Alberto Caeiro had died and Ricardo Reis had emigrated to Brazil. Pessoa was active in commercial activities, publishing with his brother-in-law a journal entitled Magazine of Commerce and Accounting. In 1932, he applied for the position of a librarian at an important archivist library in Cascais but was not chosen.

  A significant event of 1920 was the one love affair of his life with Ophélia Queiroz, a nineteen-year-old office worker at the firm where Pessoa was working at the time. As later described by her, he was quite passionate initially, kissing her intensely and writing many love letters. Whether it went beyond that, no one knows. As time passed, however, he cooled and finally told her that the kind of life he led would not fit into a conventional marriage. He broke it off, although nine years later they had a resumption of correspondence that did not lead anywhere. Pessoa seemed to feign insanity in the second round of letters in order to avoid further entanglement.

  In the latter part of his life, Pessoa increasingly turned to mystical thinking. He studied Rosicrucian mythology, although never formally joining the movement. A main interest of his was in Sebastianism, the messianic faith in the return of the young King Sebastian of Portugal who died in the sixteenth century leading a vast army against the Muslims of Morocco, an affair that ruined Portugal and led to Spanish domination for sixty years. The legend that Sebastian would return, this time to lead Portugal again to greatness, had been in existence in Portugal for centuries.

  For Pessoa, this was connected to the concept of the ‘Fifth Imperium’, the idea that Portugal would lead Europe and the world by spiritual means, rather than force and occupation that had been the case with past empires. His series of poems entitled Mensagem (Message) published in 1934, but on which he had been working for years, called for the Portuguese to again take up their destiny as a chosen people. Some Portuguese patriots believe this to be Pessoa’s most important writing.

  In the 1930s, Pessoa was drinking more heavily. His chosen liquor was aguardente, a rough Portuguese brandy. One can imagine that he needed it to turn off the incessant activity of his mind. In 1935, he started having ‘attacks’ that his doctor diagnosed as ‘hepatic colic’. He was advised that he must stop drinking, an advice that Pessoa did not follow. The episode leading to his hospitalization and death occurred in late 1935. The severity of the episode has suggested he suffered with acute pancreatitis, an alcohol-related condition that is often fatal.

  He died November 30th, 1935. His last recorded words were written in English: “I know not what tomorrow will bring.” He began his literary life writing in English and ended it in English. Pessoa once wrote that death was merely a curve in the road. He must have seen this curve coming just before his death.

  If Pessoa had had access to modern medical intensive care, he might have survived longer. But he had been sinking into a depression for years. Some days before his death, he wrote an anguished poem ending “Give me more wine, because life is worthless” (Obra, ibid. Vol 1). There were increasing references to suicide in his recent writings. Pessoa may have felt that he had exhausted what life had to offer him and what he was able to offer to the world. He may have felt it was time to enter upon that curve in the road.

  The Translation: When I discovered Pessoa over thirty years ago, there were no English translations of The Anarchist Banker. Since then, I am aware of two that have appeared, the first by Edward Honig, published by City Lights, San Francisco in 1988 (Fernando Pessoa, Always Astonished, selected prose). The second was by Richard Zenith in 2001, Grove Press, New York (The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa). Both of these translations provide clear accounts of the story and thoughts contained in the work. But there are significant stylistic variations from each other and from Pessoa’s original writing. Honig’s style is literary, quite removed from the plain unadorned prose of Pessoa. ‘Old chaps’ and ‘dear boys’ abound. The most serious problem of Honig’s translation is to render the central concept of ficções sociaes as ‘social myths’. For Pessoa, myths were more real than surface ‘realities’. But a ficcão social for the Banker was merely a fiction, a lie, a false tradition, designed to perpetuate injustice. It possesses none of the veiled redeeming features of a myth. The Portuguese term for myth, mito, was quite familiar to Pessoa, but he chose not to use it in this context. The English cognate fiction is the proper translation.

  Richard Zenith published a later translation in 2001 in which ficções sociaes is correctly translated. Zenith is a professional translator and his translation shows it. It is polished and accurate in conveying the author’s thoughts. However, the translator does take frequent liberties with Pessoa’s prose in the service of producing a more literary writing. There are many ‘Americanisms’ throughout that grate on the ear, at least my ear. “Okay, popped up, dummy, top it off, red letter, plain stupid, namby-pambies, finagling” are some of them. (The Anglicism “jolly well” is slipped in.) Zenith’s version reads as if The Anarchist Banker had been written by an accomplished American writer. One substantive alteration I have made in this translation is in not rendering the Portuguese egoista as ‘selfish’ in the Banker’s description of the natural human condition. The English cognate egoistic (not egotistic) is more descriptive and not necessarily pejorative.

  Throughout my translation I have resolutely tried to be faithful to Pessoa’s unadorned language, occasional awkward style, and strange punctuation, consistent with reasonable English usage. (However, the 1940 revised Portuguese orthography has been used throughout the reproduced Portuguese edition.) The Banker is not a litterateur; he is a tough, self-confident, no-nonsense man of action, tenaciously questioning the accepted verities. The impact of writing has as much to do with its style as with its content. (“The style is the man,” wrote Buffon … this would include heteronyms.) But even given the best of intentions by a translator, readers of translations, not excepting this one, should keep in their mind the Italian proverb tradutorre, traditore—‘translator, betrayer’.

  It is a pleasure for me to acknowledge the numerous suggestions of Bárbara Simões, many of which are incorporated in the text. I would like to thank my long time friend and typesetter Richard Ellington posthumously for his contributions to the text. Finally, I wish to say that the assistance of my wife, Melanie Dreisbach, was indispensable in every aspect of the creation of this manuscript. My gratitude to her extends beyond mere words.

  Oakland, CA; Sonoita, AZ

  1988, 2016

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  1“In order to be a good philosopher … it is necessary to be cold, lucid, without illusion. A banker, who has made a fortune, has in part the character required to make discoveries in philosophy, that is to say, to see clearly into what is.”

  First page of article that appeared in the first issue of Contemporânea (May 1922)

  THE ANARCHIST BANKER

  We had just finished dinner. In front of me was my friend, the banker, a notable figure in circles of high finance, puffing aimlessly on his cigar. The conversation, which had been petering out, seemed to be dead between us. I tried to reawaken it with a chance thought that had occurred to me. Smiling, I turned toward him.

  — Is it true: some days ago I was told that there was a time when you were an anarchist …

  — Were, no: I was and still am. I haven’t changed in that respect. I am an anarchist.

  — That’s a good one! You an anarchist! In what sense are you an anarchist? … Only if you give the word some different kind of meaning …

  — From the usual meaning? Not at all. I employ the word in the usual way.

  — Do you mean to say then, that you are an anarchist in exactly the same sense as anarchists in workers’ organizations? That there is no difference between you and bomb throwers or syndicalists?

  — Difference, difference, there is … Evidently there is a difference. But it is not what you think. Perhaps you doubt that my social theories are equal to theirs? …

  — Ah, now I see! You are an anarchist in theory; as far as practice …

  — As far as practice goes, I am just as much an anarchist as I am in theory. With regard to practice, I am more, much more of an anarchist than these types you mentioned. My entire life demonstrates it.

  — What?!

  — All my life demonstrates it, son. You have not given thoughtful attention to these matters. That’s why it appears to you that I am talking nonsense, or that I am joking with you.

  — Well, I’m afraid that I don’t understand anything! … Unless … unless you judge your life to be destructive and antisocial and give this meaning to anarchism …

  — I have already told you this isn’t the case—that is, I have already said that I do not give any different meaning than the usual one to the word anarchism.

  — That’s fine … I still don’t understand you … Man, you want me to believe that there is no difference between your anarchist theories and the type of life you lead—the life you lead at the present time? You want me to believe that your life is the same as those who are usually regarded as anarchists?

  — No; that’s not it. What I want to say is that there is no divergence between my theories and the conduct of my life, rather there is an absolute conformity. That my life is not that of syndicalists or bomb throwers—this is true. But it is their lives that are outside of anarchism, outside of anarchist ideals. Mine is not. In me—yes, in me, the banker, the capitalist, the ruthless monopoly financier if you wish—in me, the theory and practice of anarchism are perfectly fused. You compared me to those fools from trade unions in order to affirm that I am different from them. I am different, but the difference is this: they (yes, they and not I) are anarchists only in theory; I am an anarchist in both theory and practice. They are stupid anarchists, I am an intelligent anarchist. Yes, my friend, I am the one who is the true anarchist. They—the syndicalists and the bomb throwers (I also was once one of them and left them for real anarchism)— they are the dregs of anarchism, the prostitutes of the great libertarian doctrine.

  — The devil himself would not come up with this! This is astounding! But how can you reconcile your life—I mean your life as a banker and businessman—with anarchist theory? How can you do this if you say that your anarchist theory is the same as that of common anarchists? And on top of that, you even say to me that your life is more in accord with anarchism than theirs—isn’t that true?

  — Exactly.

  — I understand nothing.

  — But do you have the desire to understand?

  — I have the desire.

  He took his cigar from his mouth, which was no longer lit; relit it slowly; deliberately stared at the dead match that he had deposited in the ashtray, then, raising his head, he said:

  — Listen, I was born in poverty and of the working class. I inherited no wealth as you might have imagined, nor was I born into social position or favorable circumstances. I had only a naturally keen intelligence and a more or less strong will. But these were natural gifts that my low birth was not able to take away.

  “I was a worker, I labored, I lived a constricted life; I was, in sum, that which the majority of people are in such circumstances. I do not say that I ever really went hungry but I came close to it. Well, I might let that all pass, it wouldn’t have changed anything that followed in the events I am going to relate to you, neither how I lived in the past nor how I live now.

  “In sum, I was a common worker; as all such people, I worked because I had to work and I worked as little as I could. What I was, was intelligent. Whenever I was able, I read things, I discussed things, and, as I was not simple-minded, there arose in me a great dissatisfaction and a great rebellion against my fate and against the social conditions that made it that way. I have admitted to you, in all honesty, that much could have been worse than it was; but at that time it appeared to me that I was someone upon whom Fate had heaped all the injustices of the world and that all the conventions of society were against me. This took place when I was about twenty years of age—twenty-one at most—and was what made me into an anarchist.”

  He stopped for a moment, leaning a little further toward me when he continued.

  — I was always more or less clear thinking. I felt myself in rebellion. I wanted to understand my rebellion. I became a conscious and convinced anarchist—the conscious and convinced anarchist that I am today.

  — And the theory you hold today, it is the same that you had at that time?

  — The same. The anarchist theory, the true theory, is the only one. I am committed to it as I have always been since I became an anarchist. You’ll see … what I am saying is that as I was lucid by nature, I became a conscious anarchist. Now what is an anarchist? It is a person in revolt against the injustice of being born socially unequal—in essence, it is only this. And thereupon results, as one can see, the revolt against the social conventions that make this inequality possible. What I am telling you now is the psychological aspect, that is, how it is that people become anarchists; we shall come later to the theoretical part of the affair. For now, you can understand what would be the rebellion of an intelligent person in my circumstances. What is it that he sees in the world? A son born of a millionaire, protected from birth from the misfortunes—and they are not few—that money is able to ward off or lessen; another born in miserable conditions, his birth being only another mouth to feed where there are more mouths than food. One born as a count or marquis, and as a result always being accepted by everyone, whatever he does; another, born as I, always having to behave strictly well in order to be at least treated decently. Some born in conditions in which they can study, travel, develop themselves—become (one might say) more intelligent than others who may be naturally so. And so it goes with everything …

  “The injustices of Nature happen; we are not able to avoid them. Now those of society and its conventions—why do we tolerate them? I accept—I have no recourse—that a person is superior to me through that which Nature gives him—talent, willpower, energy; I do not accept that he is my superior through artificial props with which he did not leave his mother’s womb, but with which he was endowed by luck when he emerged from it: wealth, social status, a comfortable life, etc. It was rebellion against this situation that gave rise to my commitment to anarchism—the anarchism, which, as I have said to you, I maintain unchanged today.”

  He stopped again for a moment, as if to think how to continue. He inhaled from his cigar and blew the smoke out slowly opp
osite me. He turned and was going to continue. However, I interrupted him.

  — One question out of curiosity … Why is it that you specifically became an anarchist? You could have embraced socialism or some other progressive movement that was not so radical. It could have been compatible with your rebellion … I deduce from what you have said that by anarchism you understand (and I believe this is a good definition of anarchism) the revolt against all social conventions and organizations, and the desire and effort to abolish them all …

  — Just that.

  — Why did you choose this extreme formula and not one of the others … of the intermediate ones?

  — I will tell you. I considered all this. Certainly all these theories can be found in the pamphlets that I read. I chose the anarchist theory—the extreme theory, as you have correctly stated—for reasons that I am going to tell you in two words.

  He stared ahead for a moment. Then he turned toward me.

  — The true evil, the unique evil are the conventions and social fictions that are superimposed upon natural realities—all of them, from the family to money, from religion to the state. A person born male or female—I mean born to be in adult life a man or woman—is not born by natural law to be a husband, nor to be rich or poor, nor is he born to be catholic or protestant, Portuguese or English. One is all of these things by virtue of the social fictions. Now why are these social fictions bad? Because they are fictions, because they are not natural. Money is just as bad as the state, the structure of the family just as bad as religion. If there were others besides these, they would be equally bad, because they would also be fictions, because they would also be superimposed upon and would hinder the natural realities. Now whatever system does not conform to pure anarchism, even if it wishes the complete abolition of every social fiction, is a fiction also. To employ all our yearnings, all our energies, all our intelligence in order to establish, or help establish, one social fiction in place of another, is an absurdity, if not actually a crime, because it is making a social disruption with the explicit aim of leaving everything the same. If we find social fictions to be unjust, why crush and oppress that which is natural in men in order to substitute other social fictions for them, if we can undertake to destroy them all?